Monthly Archives: October 2018

Today Adobe announced Photoshop Elements 2019 and Premiere Elements 2019. Introducing new versions of PSE and PRE has become an annual event in late September or very early October.

Since new versions are released annually, the improvements are generally incremental. Depending upon what new features have been added, upgrading ever year may not be necessary for everyone. That being said, there is enough new in the 2019 versions to warrant giving them a good look.

In this post, I will highlight the new capabilities added to PSE 2019. In later posts, I will cover PRE 2019, Adobe’s video editing program.

Photoshop Elements Organizer

Adobe has incorporated a new and efficient installer that should simplify and speed up the installation for those downloading both PSE 2019 and PRE 2019 from Adobe’s website.

There is a totally redesigned Start page or Hub. This page always opens first in both PSE 2019 or PRE 2019. There does not seem to be a way to avoid this and going directly to the Organizer or Photo Editor in one click, short of manually putting a shortcut to the applicable .exe file. However, the new Start Page has some interesting links that most users will find helpful.

In addition to links to the Organizer, Photo Editor, and Video Editor (PRE 2019), it previews Auto Creations, a brand new feature in PSE 2019

Auto Creations is probably the biggest innovation added to the Organizer. Auto Creations examines your photos and videos in the Organizer and automatically generates slide shows, photo collages, video collages, and interesting photos extracted from your videos. Many may not really be what you are looking for, but each can be fine tuned within the program or even deleted. These creations may take awhile to generate, but the process runs in the background. Up to 40 creations can be generated, and as you delete some, others will be added as new photos and videos are imported into the Organizer.

There is one take away. You can no longer share a photo directly to Facebook from the Organizer. As of August 1st, Facebook does not allow direct sharing from any desktop app. I suspect this is part of their security improvements. Perhaps when some dust settles, the capability may return.

Photo Editor

Adobe has added some new fun and useful Guided Edits to this version. This includes creating a Meme (humorous image/video or text), Partial Sketch, Text and Border Overlay, and Multi-Photo Text.

Text Tool now includes custom Leading and Tracking.

The Open Closed Eyes tool now can select the source photo for eye replacement from the Photo Bin. This added capability makes this excellent tool even easier to use.

The new Apple High Efficiency Image Format (HEIF) for JPEG images is available on Mac iOS 10.13. HEIF images can be taken by an iPhone 7 or later or the iPad Pro.

New versions of both PSE 2019 and PRE 2019 are available from Adobe now at the link below.